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The Struggle to Perfect the Constitution
In an address on the occasion of the bicentennial of the American Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court, argued that the U.S. Constitution was deeply flawed in its creation and has required substantial change to bring it to its present state. He said, "While the Union survived the civil war, the Constitution did not." The Civil War and the Fourteenth Amendment provided "a new basis for justice and equality . . . ensuring protection of life, liberty and property of all persons against deprivations without due process." |